Canon Selphy ES30 review

Is it worth Canon persisting with dedicated photo printers?

Our Verdict

The self-contained nature of the ES30 with its all-in-one dye and paper pack makes a better travelling companion than the competing CP780, and image quality is better too

For

Solid build

Very useful standalone features

Against

Image quality still not up to par with desktop printers

The new Canon Selphy ES30 boasts a market-leading dye-sub resolution of 600dpi, equivalent to 4,800dpi in an inkjet printer. It also features Canon's DIGIC II image processing, for optimum direct printing from PictBridge-compatible cameras or when printing from one of the many supported memory card formats.

On a more practical note, the one-piece dye cartridge and paper pack fits neatly inside the printer so, unlike the CP780, there's no paper tray to clip on and everything is self-contained. Another bonus is that the paper exits from the top of the printer between passes, so no extra room is needed behind the printer.

There's a full range of automatic image enhancements available, from independently correcting the brightness of detected faces and backgrounds within the same picture, to manual colour enhancements and alterations.

Other neat tricks include a 'creative' print button, with which you can add clip-art, speech bubbles and graphical picture and frame effects. The high-quality 3.0-inch colour LCD comes into its own here, enabling you to carry out image enhancements and tackle projects on a standalone basis, without relying on an attached computer.

Image quality proved noticeably better than the CP780, with much better retention of highlight detail.